JOJMÁ Y BINÁ

Mistilteinn is the plant used to slay Baldr in Völuspá R and Snorri‟s Edda. Scholarship

has been haunted by an insistence on interpreting mistilteinn according to modern usage, in spite of the fact that these descriptions do not correspond to viscum album, “mistletoe”. Consequently, tremendous effort has been expended to explain how and why “mistletoe” could fulfil the role of mistilteinn in these sources; e.g. Turville-Petre (1964:116) declared, “The Icelanders did not know this plant, and they could believe that a deadly shaft was made from it,” which seems to give voice to popular opinion (cf. Lindow 1997:60-61), I remain sceptical: if “mistletoe” were sacred and/or magically powerful as it emerges in later folklore, where it assumes value in Christian traditions – notably in a

243 _{This does not mean that Saxo did not interpret the term as in some way associated with “horn”, but}

rather that he interpreted the “spear of horn” in accordance with the traditions of Latin poetry without necessarily reconciling

positive rather than negative sense (see Hoffmann-Krayer & Bächtold-Stäubli 1927- 1942:s.v.) – it seems probable that examples would have found their way back to Iceland in conjunction with commerce and adventure, possibly even as a prestige import item.

Liberman (2004:26ff.) shows that the complex mistil-teinn is an exceptional formation in ON and almost certainly related to the corresponding Anglo-Saxon misteltan, “mistletoe”. Mistil-teinn is the only Old Norse compound ending in -teinn preserved in prose which is not a sword-name (Liberman 2004:28), and furthermore in modern Scandinavian plant-lore, the suffix -ten appears to belong to the learned rather than popular register (Rooth 1961:137). It is clear that mistilteinn was not a popular term for “mistletoe” (which does not grow in central or northern Scandinavia). Mistilteinn is only found referring to the instrument which slays Baldr or as a sword name in ON, and Liberman stresses that where it is in popular use in modern Scandinavia, the term is used to refer to other winter-green plants, such as ivy. In medieval Iceland, the noun

mistilteinn appears to have been indexically associated with the Baldr-Cycle; its referent

may have been interpreted exclusively in terms of the instrument of Baldr‟s death.

Liberman proposes that mistilteinn replaced an earlier plant such as þistill, “thistle”, which is clearly associated with magical properties. The simplex mistill appears in magic runic inscriptions of the þistill-mistill-kistill formula, “thistle-mistill-little casket”, dating back to at least the 9th century, with a parodic adaptation appearing in Iceland as late as the 14th (McKinnell & Simek 2004:134). The meaning of mistill is uncertain; the suffix -

il-o- is associated with plant-names such as þistill (RGA XX:97). The simplex is found

still earlier in Anglo-Saxon, but only in glosses. Glosses for viscus, “mistletoe”, appear related to Æneid VI.205, the description of wrenching free of the Golden Bough for Æneas‟s journey to the otherworld (RGA XX:96), making them awkwardly dependent on interpretation.244 AS mistel was also used to gloss ocimum, “basil” (RGA XX:97; Bosworth & Toller 1898:692). The simplex apparently dropped out of use in both AS

244

Saxo‟s (1931:30) corresponding narrative of Hadingus‟s journey to the otherworld guided by a witch appears to be influenced by Æneid VI (Ellis Davidson & Fisher 1980:35-36), but the woman carries cicutæ, “hemlock”, rather than “mistletoe”. This is Saxo‟s only use of cacuta (Blatt 1935-1957:130) leaving its referent ambiguous.

and ON. This process may have opened the lexeme to variation corresponding to that found in umpiputki and veson (§9.5.2). Mistill appears to have had a plant as a referent, but the specific plant is uncertain. Moreover, there is the very real possibility that the meaning of the complex formation mistil-teinn, “mistill-stick”, originally referred to an object designated as a teinn which was constituted of mistill, whether that teinn was worked into a special form or simply “raw” in the sense of a teinn broken from mistill.

It is unclear whether mistilteinn as a compound bears any relation to the obscure “-teinn” called gambanteinn appearing in Skírnismál 32 and Hárbarðsljóð 20. In Skírnismál, Skírnir goes to a hrár viðr, “fresh tree, sapling”, to get a gambanteinn, which is at least similar to acquisitions of the mistilteinn. The element gamban- is obscure but seems to have some association with value, and none with botany (Cleasby & Vigfússon 1896:189). Its use in gamban-teinn appears to express the magical power of the teinn (von See et al. 1997:203). Van Hamel (1932) presents examples of gambateinn’s usage in later folklore where it is provided with the same function in magic, but is described as a gambanteinn eða reyrsproti, a “gambanteinn or reed” (van Hamel 1932:138). Although the gambanteinn receives relatively little attention in discussions of mistilteinn, the latter‟s use in the Baldr-slaying very often leads to discussions of parallels in the

reyrsproti, “reed”, which functions magically as a spear associated with Óðinn in other

sources (§21.5).245 Like mistilteinn, this designation gambanteinn may be more strongly associated with function rather than botany, even if the degree of correspondence in the functions of these instruments remains obscure.

245 _{Detter (1894:501-502) made an interesting, if speculative, contribution to this discussion by introducing}

the Dutch vernacular term for mistletoe, maretak/marentakken followed by a cascade of similar terms in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish which are not for “mistletoe”, but for other outgrowths on trees in which the first element is resonant with mar- and the second can be associated with a twig, shoot or grass. The contribution is of value in moving from the referent to broader perspectives on language and language usage, even if this had the goal of arguing that the killing in Ynglinga saga with horse bridles (Aðalbjarnarson 1941:39-40) and its corresponding verse in Ynglingatal (Jónsson 1912-1915.A.I:9) are based on a confusion of some term similar to maretak/marentakken being interpreted as “horse tack”. The kenning in Ynglingatal is hnakkmars höfuðfetlar, “saddle-horse‟s head-straps”, which does not seem to imply a plant. Cf. the use of horse-whips by swan maidens in a dream in Seglige Con Culainn, which leave the hero in a helpless (and in some sense sexually subjugated) state similar to the effects of Freyr‟s vision of Gerðr in Skírnismál (see Hall 2007:137ff.). There is no reason to associate the horse whips with plants, although their use is seems typologically similar to the implied significance of gambanteinn.

Höðr berr hávan hróðrbarm þinig, “Höðr bears the high glory-barmr from there” (Bd

9.1-2) has been variously interpreted to mean “Höðr kills Baldr” and “Höðr fetches

mistilteinn” (e.g. Gering & Sijmons 1927:343; Dronke 1997:158). Hróðrbarmr is a hapax legomenon. The second element is problematic and has been edited to baðmr,

“[blossoming] branch” (e.g. Sijmons 1906). This facilitates reading the object as either a plant or a kenning (“praise-tree”=“man”). A degree of interchangability as poetic terms is seen in ættbaðmr and ættbarmr, “lineage”, exchanged in manuscript transmission (Faulkes 1998.II:349). Barmr is most probably related to barmi, “brother”, belonging to the poetic register, giving “glory-brother” directly comparable to hróðrbarn, “glory- child” (Faulkes 1998:44). Hróðrbarmr would therefore be appropriate for Baldr. Lindow objects to the plant-reading because hróðrbaðmr seems inappropriate for a botanical term,246 but “praise-branch” could be a circumlocution related to the plant, instrument or specific weapon.247

This line is placed in the mouth of a völva outside of the realm of Hel. The close correspondences between Baldrs draumar and Völuspá R accounts of the Baldr-Cycle imply they are related (Dronke 1997:158). In Völuspá, mistilteinn is völlum hæri, “higher than the fields”, comparable to the use of the corresponding adjective in hár hróðbarmr. The adverb þinig, “from there”, is comparable to the statement in Völuspá that Höðr retrieves mistilteinn from a remote location. If hróðbarmr is interpreted as “Baldr”,

þinig, “there”, refers to the world of the living and “to bear from there” relative to the völva rather peculiarly means to “kill”. This interpretation results in a repetition of the

same information twice in the stanza. If the referent is interpreted as mistilteinn, Bd 9 follows the same structure as the prophetic responses of Bd 7 and 11: the first long line presents one piece of information, followed by another in the central long lines, closing with the völva’s refrain in the final long line. This patterning of information implies that the line was associated with something other than Baldr – presumably mistilteinn. The line could however remain extremely stable in transmission (cf. Frog 2009b:273) while

246

Mistilteinn as a complex presents a similar problem: the complex is indexically identified with sword- names and appears as such in two sagas (§21.2.3).

247 _{Snorri associates throwing things at Baldr with his frami, “glory” (Faulkes 1982:45) and Saxo presents}

the (hypothetical) exchange of baðmr for barmr, functioning as poetic synonyms in other contexts, could be indicative of reinterpreting the referent as Baldr rather than the weapon, or be the result of lexical renewal on a conventional basis.